


Momma's Boy

by storybored



Series: Batfamily appreciation week [12]
Category: Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Illness, Waitress - Freeform, clinic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybored/pseuds/storybored
Summary: Jason loves his mom more then anything, but he's noticed her being more then a little off lately. He's tried to help her sleep it off but she's not okay. He knows that.





	Momma's Boy

Jason watched as his mother scrambled to get ready for work, her hair a mess of tangles. She put her hair up in a sloppy bun and attached her name tag to her lapel. She’d overslept by a few minutes, she hadn't been feeling well the past few days and Jason was afraid she was seeing Danny again,”Jay? Ready for school?”

Jay grabbed his Spiderman backpack before bouncing over to her, she ran a hand through his hair, Jason batted her hand away and whined,”We’re gonna be late.”

Cat looked amused by his statement and straightened up, swaying slightly as she pinched the bridge of her nose,”Don’t let me sleep past 7 next time. Baby, I have to go to Doctor Thompkins after work. Can I trust you to walk there after school and offer to help out?”   
Jason nodded and pulled up his hoodie,”Yes mama. Why do you have to go?”

Cat took her son’s hand as they left the apartment quickly,”I haven’t been feeling well, but it could be the flu. I just can’t risk my precious Jaybaby getting sick now can I?”

Jason scowled as his mother squeezed him, causing her to laugh slightly,”’m not a baby anymore. I’m nine.”

“You’ll always be my baby. You’re not gonna stop just because you’re nine.” Cat said her voice amused. The school wasn’t very big, just a handful of rooms near a building the Martha Wayne foundation bought. The Park Row Elementary fit how Gotham viewed the people it was supposed to teach, cast offs, disposable, forgotten. But Jason loved learning and that was the only place Cat could afford. Willis was a deadbeat even out of jail, so Cat would take him to the library and let him wander the aisles for hours and read him books that he couldn’t understand but wanted to. Jason might not have been hers biologically but she was his mother, his  _ only _ mother. Sheila might’ve given birth to him and Cat might have only been Willis’s side piece at first, but then Sheila abandoned Jason with a week of him being born. Then Willis showed up with the little black haired blue eyed bundle and Cat was immediately smitten, Willis wanted to put him up for adoption and she wouldn’t stand for that so she used every trick she had Willis eventually caved seeing how happy Jason made her, so maybe she babied him a bit. But that was her right as his mother.

Jason sighed as his mother fussed with his hood and tried to make him look semi-presentable,”Maaaaaa.”

Cat licked her hand and tried to wrangle that curly mess of hair, as the warning bell rang. She grabbed the shoulder of his sweater,”Jay, where are you going after school?”

Jason rolled his eyes,”To the free clinic. I ain’t an idiot.”

Cat kissed his head, and pushed him toward the school,”I know, but I worry. I love you, learn lots.”

* * *

 

Jason fidgeted with his backpack as he walked towards the front desk, the girl who was working it was new. Her hair short and choppy like she cut it herself. She smiled a little too wide at him and Jason wanted to hide in his hoodie instead of be here,”Did Catherine Todd already meet with Doc Thompkins yet?”

The girl blinked at him,”I think they’re just finishing up. She’s in room 3.”

Jason smiled at the girl,”Thanks.”

Jason headed back to the back rooms of the clinic, he remembered coming here before with his mom after his dad got a little too drunk and rough with him and his mom, he nodded at the older volunteers who greeted him. Jason knocked on Room 3 and heard his mom tell him to come in. She was sitting in one of those paper gowns, her sloppy bun barely intact, and waitressing uniform folded up neatly on the chair next to the exam table. Her face was kind of splotchy and her eyes were red and puffy as if she had been crying. She saw her son walk through the door and shot him a weak and watery grin,”Hi, Jaybaby.”

Jason climbed onto the exam table, and looked up at his mom as she kissed his head and started to run her fingers through his hair,”Mama, is everything okay?”

Catherine squeezed Jason tightly, she couldn’t tell him what the Doc told her. He worried about her enough with the habit she finally kicked, and her struggling to get the rent paid on time and enough money for food and clothing for Jason, he was small for his age. And it was all Cat’s fault, she should have kicked her habit earlier but when Willis was around it was easier to check out and deal with him, then be sober and see how much her life had fallen apart,”Of course sweetheart. Everything is going to be fine.”


End file.
